Measurement, computation, and display of true airspeed (TAS), MACH number (MN), and/or calibrated airspeed (CAS), as well as altitude, enables a pilot to maintain a recommended safe airspeed. Typically, these airspeeds (TAS, MN, CAS) and altitude are provided by an air data computer (ADC) that receives pertinent information from pitot static sensors. The ADC and pitot sensors typically include redundancies for high reliability; however, failures still occur resulting in improper aircraft operation.
Despite these multiple redundancies, maintenance safety, damage avoidance either on ground or in flight, and numerous pre-flight checks, a chance of malfunctioning of the pitot static sensor remains. In addition, the typically highly reliable ADC also may become undependable, providing incorrect information. It is therefore essential to have an alternate method of MN and TAS computation adapted for general aviation, business, regional and helicopters, and air transport aircraft either with or without a flight management system.
Accordingly, it is desirable to provide a system and method for calculating Mach number and true airspeed for comparison with, or in lieu of, a pitot static sensor. Furthermore, other desirable features and characteristics of the exemplary embodiments will become apparent from the subsequent detailed description and the appended claims, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings and the foregoing technical field and background.